Even as city council voted to rip out eight kilometres of bike lanes in Toronto, the health department announced this week it will fund a study to prove that adding bike lanes in Toronto will encourage cycling and thus reduce obesity and diabetes.

The request for proposals, published Tuesday, seeks a vendor “to review and synthesize the evidence for health risks and benefits associated with walking, cycling,” for delivery on Dec. 1, 2011. The RFP adds, “The report should also identify policy and strategy options that could be implemented to increase safe walking, cycling, and transit use in Toronto.”

“People really need to realize that there are multiple ways of getting around in the city, and if people take bikes or walk they will be healthier,” said Monica Campbell, director of healthy public policy in Toronto Public Health, which is largely funded by the province and will pay for the study. Ms. Campbell declined to put a price tag on it.

The health department’s focus on biking and walking puts it on a collision course with Mayor Rob Ford, who declared the day he took office that “the war on the car is over.”

On Wednesday council voted to spend $410,000 to scrap bike lanes on Jarvis Street and Birchmount and Pharmacy avenues in order to increase space for cars. And a report by consultants from the firm KPMG released Monday suggested that the city “consider reducing the scale of bicycle infrastructure being developed” as an “opportunity” to save money.

“Maybe this [public health] study should be shown to KPMG,” quipped Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Don Valley East), the chair of the Works committee, which governs cycling infrastructure.

Council did vote this week to install physically separated bike lanes on Sherbourne and Wellesley streets in 2012, and to “assess the feasability of separated bike lanes on Adelaide Street and/or Richmond Street, and separated north-south bicycle lanes … connecting the existing Beverley Street lanes to the Waterfront.”

But penny-pinching could threaten those plans. Mr. Minnan-Wong refused to rule out cuts to bike infrastructure to balance the budget.

The health department report will suggest policy options that “could be implemented to increase safe walking, cycling, and transit use in Toronto.” It notes that postwar suburbs face different challenges from the downtown.

Toronto has seen jumps in bike riders and pedestrians in recent years, Ms. Campbell said. She has begun commuting with the new Bixi rental bicycles from her home to her office.

“We would like to see a greater shift to move people from cars to bicycles, walking or transit,” Ms. Campbell said. “This will reduce air pollution, noise levels, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion, and benefit individuals, making them more able to maintain a healthy weight.

“The rates of diabetes in Toronto are skyrocketing … We really need to increase our cycling infrastructure, and having bike lanes really increases safety. It’s a question of meeting the public’s demand.”